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Tag Archives: awards

British Science Week takes place next week from 13-22nd March and we have a fun filled week of activities in place at the UCLan and Ri Young Scientist Centre (YSC).

We have the official opening of the UCLan and Ri YSC which takes place on Wednesday.

The centre is a state-of-the-art lab used to deliver interactive workshops, allowing young people to creatively explore science. It is the first national branch of the YSC outside of London and it is a beacon for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) in Lancashire.

Staff and students battled it out last week at our Demo Day heats to secure a place to perform for us at our Demo Day 2015 which lands on Thursday, March 19.

From daring demonstrations to exceptional experiments we had a variety of demos and it was a very hard decision to choose the final five performances who will showcase their demo at the YSC. The final winner will be chosen by school children on Thursday. This will be our first event in the centre after its official opening.

We will also be performing some of your favourite #scistories so don’t forget to share with us your most memorable science experiments/demos from school. You can share yours by tweeting us @YSCUCLan using the hashtag #SciStories or share your experiences on our Facebook page.

Demo Day is an annual campaign aimed at inspiring school teachers and technicians to explore ideas and promote discussions through exciting science demonstrations.

Last night we held the Lancashire Schools Physicist of the Year award. I love this event. We write to all schools in the area that offer A level physics and ask them to select their top student. Some teachers choose students that are high achievers, others choose students who need a bit of a confidence boost.

We invite all the students, plus their proud families, to a nice awards evening, with a buffet and wine. They get to meet some of our research staff and then we have a public lecture from one of the researchers- last night Jo Bibby talked about her ‘Journey to the Stars’ a very inspiring tour of her research career and subject, which is the Death of Massive Stars.

The event is sponsored by the Ogden Trust- all the award winners become Ogden alumni and are eligible for scholarships and other benefits.